And a few threads about the Brawlers Guild, including the note that there is no world first or realm first. One commenter wrote particularly well about their distake for the buying of invites from the Black Market AH:

Nessaja – “You may not have intended this to be something big, but it’s obviously extremely popular and anticipated content, and your unwillingness to budge from your wealth-centered content delivery mechanism is both disappointing and wholly unfair to the vast majority of your paying customers.”

BluePost – “After reaching a certain rank in the Brawler’s Guild, each of the new members can eventually earn one new invitation of their own to pass out to someone else on the same realm, so the Brawler’s Guilds on each realm should get progressively larger and larger over time. We may also investigate alternate methods of acquiring invitations or making them more plentiful”

Blizzard have releaseda graphic novel – The Pearl of Pandaria, which is getting reasonable reviews so far from what I’ve heard on blogs and podcasts.

Pet battles are provingto be darn popular, which I did not expect. Many guildies are raving about how good it is and the achievement junkies are going spare to get all the battles in. blogs and podcasts too seem to be loving them, somewhat ironically. Good call Blizzard, wow – given that I might try it in a few weeks.

I’m reading the Tides of War novelto gain some lore background on the setting for Mists. While I can appreciate the books are different from the games (or films, or whatever) there are things in the novel’s timeline which do not mesh with what I am playing in the game.

For example the game lore just released has everyone discovering the moving island of Pandaria. This discovery leads to a few changes for major Non Player Characters and also to the escalation to war between the Horde and the Alliance. The novel by contrast has the escalation based upon the destruction of Theramore, and the ongoing battle using all sorts of non-typical war machines. It is a disparity in terms of I am not sure which is missing on what lore, or which is meant to be right.

Am I at war because of Pandaria, the bombing, or some other reason? “Why do we fight” is a reasonable question, and one that perhaps the more roleplaying focused players have already answered for themselves in spite of the odd contradiction. I’m kind of expecting a RetCon somewhere in the post-Mists round-up to declare that the novel is authorative, but who knows.

There is also the possibility that the segment of story told in Tides of War is removed from the events of Pandaria and these things are all happening in parallel. That would be almost plausible, except for one of the NPCs (who I won’t spoil).

Many distracting things which take us away from the leveling. Must play…must play…

A quick round-up before I slide into a flat-out weekend of social activity and non-nerd related stuff. The last week was a bonanza of cool activity all based upon completing aspects of Cataclysm at the last minute, but my stuff will make it into another post.

This is just some odd news.

Privacy for BattleNet

We get a privacy option in battleNet games soon, which lets us go into a hidden mode while online. Good. This extends to the friends list as well as battleNetID mates.

I wonder if that will have an illusory affect on the apparent server populations?

In the coming months, we’re planning an update to Battle.net that will give you more control over your online presence when playing Blizzard games. Soon, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and Diablo III players will be able to select “Appear Offline” as one of their Battle.net social-status options (along with Available, Busy, and Away) for those times when they want to wander Azeroth by their lonesome, dominate the galaxy in radio silence, or slay demons in solitude. When you choose this option as your status, all of your Real ID friends, BattleTag friends, and character-level friends will see you as “Offline” in their friends list whenever you’re logged into a game. (source)

Reminders to Buy – We get an email reminding us to pre-purchase Mists to the account which has already pre-purchased Mists of Pandaria. And another to my old account which I don’t play, and another to the test account I had to muck about on. Two of those were valid to get, the message sent to my account which should already be upgrade is likely to push the Collector’s Edition opportunity rather than the standard digital version.

Promotions and Vids for Mists – Wow Insider has a summary of Everything that Awaits in Mists. Blizzard have committed to making this release the best ever…

With this expansion, we’re using a new bit of tech that will unlock the expansion content, make the intro quest magically pop up in your quest log, and allow you to begin playing the expansion immediately without the need to log out and back in. If everything goes as planned this will be a smooth transition to the adventures that await you in the new continent (source).

Re-remember Theramore is a snarky jab at getting the Theramore scenario re-worked to be something wonderful.

I went away on the weekend, kept my nose away from the news, and enjoyed being unplugged. We went to a beach, a few wineries, and a charity dinner.

When I got back I discovered that the inmates are running the asylum, and we’re to get Warcraft – Mists of Pandas as the next expansion.

Now I asked for Monks in a few blog posts over the years, so I can say I’m pleased about that. And yup, they are Tank, Dps, heal modes just like I thought as it was kind of a no-brainer to guess. But the rest of it I’m not sure about, to the point of thinking of stopping wow until after its live so I can avoid the long drawn out release and change in modes. Pandas? Seriously? No. Not as Player characters.

Lore wise … a big ocean battle discovers an island race of monks who wished to remain hidden. Now that they are discovered they don’t hide, or just open a slow trade, or ask to be left alone – they join both sides of an expanding war. WTF. That is like the Dali Lama using an assault rifle.

The mini-pet-combat seems a distraction that is not worth it to me, and it stinks to think they a re-vamp to the gear award system is half-hitched, but we’ll see mini-pet combat. That is misguided. And I can’t think that the new talent system will actually feel ok, but then they’ve got more experience doing this.

Overall – I’ll wait and see what this expansion planning looks like in March or June next year. For now, I’m more scared than excited.

We new it was coming, and even though I kind of figured that it would bring lots of new stuff, I’m stoked. Bring on the real hi-res cinematic, confirmation of details, and all some such news.

This news will also bring a death knell for the guilds that have players thinking about stopping though. I can see many players not liking the fact Deathwing is the major bad guy, because we’ve seen him before and many of the players who played BWL were also doing Naxx, and might have been pissed off that Naxx was re-made for WotLK. I can see a few going on hiatus too until the expansion is released, with a “why bother” attitude. Several months from now will be a perfect time to release a new MMORPG game.

I’m excited and willing to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt. I want to see and fight in Icecrown, kill Arthas, and can see Cat being something positive for the World of Warcraft.

Damn me, a Worgen Death Knight will look totally awesome too.

Level 85 seems an odd choice, but *meh* I’m sure it can work. It is just a number after all. Will this mean a change to the regular gear trashing that occurs? Given we’re seeing 80 gear that ranges from iLevel 187 to 245, a level 85 Epic must be over iLevel 300.

A new Secondary profession is a good idea, no idea what in hell it will do. Lore related?